Many industrial or business operations utilize electrical, mechanical, pneumatic, or some combination thereof, machinery. Examples of such machinery include electrical motors, turbines, et cetera. Typically, it is desirable to dampen, or otherwise attenuate, any vibrations generated by such machinery. Reducing the vibration of machinery generally reduces the noise of the machinery, as well as the mechanical wear that components disposed on or near the machinery undergo due to the acceleration caused by the vibration. Vibration dampeners in the form of pads or springs have been used in a variety of industries including, for example, heavy machinery, buildings, automotive vehicles, process industries, et cetera. These dampeners/pads/springs typically reduce, at least to some extent, the vibration, by transforming some of the mechanical motion's energy into the dampener and ultimately to thermal energy.
While typically vibration dampening is considered essential for many situations, the mechanical energy translated into the dampener is essentially lost. Providing an improved device, structure or system that could couple to a source of mechanical vibration and generate useful energy would be highly desirable.